Music

Maxine Sibihwana / 8 August 2025

Interview

Get to know V.I.C ahead of his Reading & Leeds debut

The rapper-producer talks dealing with viral singles, world-building for live shows, and "being nothing to appreciate everything"

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V.I.C is a musical renegade. The Nigerian-born Southampton rapper-producer is creating his own lane in UK hip hop, riding the wave of avant-garde that fellow experimental young rappers on the scene have done, allowing UK hip hop to be fertile soil for new ideas, sounds, and voices. His singles ‘Diamonds’ and ‘Wasteman’ made a viral splash, garnering international interest in his artistry from Spotify Fresh Finds, VIPER, and even a co-sign from Jimmy Butler. Think if 2004 G-Unit and 2014 J. Cole had a future-looking UK counterpart – one who draws influence from both but is equally unique, one who traverses genre, one whose lyricism is both introspective and braggadocious.

Now, post the release of his latest single ’40 Doors’, and ahead of his debut Reading & Leeds set this month, we sat down with V.I.C to discuss dealing with viral moments, preparing for live sets, and finding happiness in the music-making process.

V.I.C - Wasteman [Official Music Video]

Since the release of ‘Diamonds’ in February, and your EP VÄRIANT in May, to now preparing for Reading & Leeds sets in August, your growth has been unprecedented. How have you been navigating that rapid success?

“Navigating” is an interesting word to use. You think that once you’d had some sort of success in the past, it would be easier to navigate anything else. But I feel like change is always a hard thing to navigate, no matter what it is. There’ve been good parts and there’ve been… interesting parts. Let’s put it that way.

Today I woke up and I was just like, “I don’t understand the whole atmosphere of where I am now” because I feel like I was so used to being the guy that just has to put his head down and put all of this together. And now I have a team, I’ve got all of these people around me working to make this thing happen, and I’m trying to figure out where my place is in this. But that change is also [about] letting go of a lot of things. So it’s just a very interesting period right now – it’s still confusing.

‘Wasteman’ and your latest single ’40 Doors’ both have a G-Unit kind of sound, as opposed to a more kind of conscious hip hop sound with ‘Diamonds’. Is that a result of the new changes you’re experiencing?

What’s so funny is this new song, ’40 doors’, was the oldest [in the vault]. I wrote it three years ago. VÄRIANT was supposed to be me just putting things out to see what lands, and then ‘Diamonds’ and ‘Wasteman’ did so well. But there are things that you like [as an artist] and there is a certain way that people see you, and you have to find a way to play to that. I fought releasing ’40 Doors’ because I didn’t want people to be like, “Oh, you’re the 50-Cent guy”. But I think there is enough catalogue out there that if people really want to find out who I am, they will be able to look back and see it all.

I feel like with what I’m doing now, with what is working, sometimes you have to accentuate some parts of your personality to allow people to see the real you, right? It doesn’t mean that that’s all of you. It means like you’re a multicoloured person, but this is the part that is working at the moment.

Does this apply to your live performances? How are you preparing for your live show at Reading & Leeds?

During the roll-out of ‘Wasteman’ I thought “I’m having my chance, now I need everybody to see that”, and I rushed too quickly to try and do a show. We wanted to make it an immersive experience. So for the cover of VÄRIANT, we were going to build it in the space, but we rushed too quickly into it. We had everything planned, but because of the roll-out of the EP that I had to focus on, I was burning out every other week. So now we’ve pushed back the show to the end of the year to give ourselves more time, and we can test things out with Reading & Leeds as well.

I think with the type of sounds that VÄRIANT has in it, I had to bring a live band into it. So for Reading & Leeds, we’ve got a live band and we’re just trying to find a way to make the songs even better in real life. We’ve done two rehearsals so far, and it’s sounding amazing. Even though we can’t do the immersive experience [for the festival sets], we can do this and just start building from there.

Lyrically, the EP explored self discovery and self expression. Is that something that you’re carrying with you in your next era of music?

Humans fascinate me. I don’t understand myself, and the deeper I go into this art and creativity, the more I find out I know nothing. I’m just trying to find out more stuff and find whatever will allow me to be able to understand and appreciate things for exactly what they are. You can put out an image of who you’re supposed to be or who people think you’re supposed to be. But then you buy into that image, and it stops you from being able to appreciate things. So I just want to be like… nothing… to be able to appreciate everything.

Do we have any collaborations coming up that you can talk about?

You know what? I do. I have a song with Kota the Friend that I produced as well.

Oh so you’re exploring production too?

Yeah I’ve been trying to do that, because – especially after listening to Jim Legxacy‘s new album – it really cemented that to do what you need to do, or to make it sound exactly how you want it to, you need to have a certain process in the production.

Do you have any kind of dream venues where you’d want to play?

Definitely KOKO. Recently, I’ve seen all my favorite people in KOKO, and I put it in one of my freestyles recently, so it has to be KOKO. But I think anybody’s goal, especially in the UK would be to sell out the O2. But I just want to do everything. I want to do Glastonbury, I want to do Coachella.

What would you like the future to hold for V.I.C?

I don’t know if it know if this is controversial or not, but I’ve been looking into Eminem recently. I have a coach, and I was telling him what my days look like. It’s just like: wake up, go to the gym, come back, make music. And I think to myself “yo, is this supposed to be it?”. And [my coach] was saying that he has a friend that met Eminem. And Eminem is not like the Eminem that you think of who is this controversial person. He didn’t have the white Slim Shady hair, he just had brown hair and he was wearing glasses. He’s just so much of a nerd for words and music, and trying to curate the best thing.

Eminem is one of the highest selling artists of all time, he’s done everything. But after you’ve done that, what next? Once you’ve conquered everything, what next? But he still turns up everyday. He still makes music. So I guess the goal for my art is I want to always find happiness and peace in the process.

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V.I.C will play Reading & Leeds festivals 21 – 24 August 2025. Find tickets here